Category: Uncategorized
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In Libris Libertas: Open Access Monographs in Classics, Ancient History, Art History, and Archaeology
It is syllabus time for many once again. If you are like me, you want to save your students from spending too much on textbooks, but still want to have a rich array of current reading for students assigned on your syllabus. A few years ago, I put together a popular list of “Open Access […]
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Consider the Anus Radish: Etymologies, Adultery, and the Defense of the Microhistory
Isidore was a learned scholar and the Bishop of the Spanish city of Seville from 600-636 CE. Thousands of manuscripts containing his Etymologiae (“The Etymologies,” also called the Origines, “The Origins”) survive today; the only work to surpass it in terms of extant manuscript copies in Western Europe is the Bible (Throop 2005: xii). The sheer number of […]
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Through the Eyes of Ruby: Discovering Color and Trade in ‘The World Between Empires’
Last week, Candida Moss and I were lucky enough to catch the tail end of The World between Empires: Art and Identity in the Ancient Middle East, an exhibition which opened March 18 and closes on June 23, 2019 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The 190 objects within the exhibition acquired from […]
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The Jewish Colosseum: Revising the Memory of Rome’s Flavian Amphitheater
Originally known as the Flavian Amphitheater, the Roman Colosseum is oftentimes directly associated with the death of Christians; however, as Keith Hopkins and Mary Beard point to in The Colosseum, there is no authentic evidence from the first century to support the notion that Christians were ever martyred within it: The fact is that there are no […]
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Pro Publica: A Public Classics Workshop
Pro Publica: A Public Classics Workshop Northwestern University, October 18-19, 2019 How can we better speak and write about the ancient Mediterranean for the general public? How can academics engaged in the study of antiquity underscore the relevance of Classics in the present day? The Society for Classical Studies and the Department of Classics at […]
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The Art of the Logographer: Ghostwriting from Antiquity to Trump
Many incorrectly imagine that the life of a Classicist involves a blind obsession with the particulars of the ancient Greek subjunctive or debates over the hexameters of Sulpicia. However, ancient historians who wish to access the everyday world of the past must also become astute ethnographers of the present. I spend most of my days […]
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My Statement on the ‘Future of Classics’ Panel and the Aftermath
This morning, the SCS released a statement over confusion about whether I have been formally censured by the society. I have not been formally censured by the SCS but would like to discuss what did happen: At 5:36 pm on February 26, I received an email from the Vice President for Outreach at SCS, who […]
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Deus Ex Machina: Depicting Cranes and Pulleys in the Ancient World
Within ancient theater, the phrase ‘deus ex machina‘ actually referred to a crane called a μηχανή (the Greek term from whence we get our “machine”) used to suspend and then lower individuals onto the stage during performances of tragic plays, particularly those written by Sophocles and Euripides. In nine of his plays, an epiphanic deus was lowered […]
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Building the Iron Gates of Alexander: The Migrant Caravan & Geographies of Fear
Thousands of refugees are currently standing at the US-Mexico border. In their 2,500 mile journey from Central America, these women, children, and men from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador have endured much in order to petition for a grant of asylum within the United States. As I have written about before, the concept of the […]
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Book Review: Not All Dead White Men
Over on Ancient Jew Review, I have a review of Donna Zuckerberg’s new book, Not All Dead White Men. The review was certainly not easy to write, but I do recommend buying, reading, and then sharing this important read. It is honestly the only time in the past two years or so that I have been happy to […]
History From Below 